Abstract
Aim: The aim of the pilot study was to verify usability of a newly developed system that utilizes a force platform and visual feedback for home-based balance training. Material and methods: The pilot study was performed in 14 respondents (13 women and one man) with the mean age of 67 +- 7 years.
The balance training took place in domestic environment for a period of 26 days with the use of interactive system employing the principle of visual feedback. All volunteers reported subjective perception of balance issues but no significant objective risk of fall was diagnosed.
Non-parametric Friedman's test was used to evaluate the effect of the therapy. Results: The results showed that the time required to finish the same reference training scene significantly decreased at the level of significance of 0.001 (chi-square = 113.56, s.v. = 21, n = 14; p = 0.001).
All subjects improved their ability to react to scene changes in virtual environment by shifting their centre of gravity. Conclusion: We verified usability of this custom-developed system for home-based balance training.
Further randomized study incorporating larger data set is needed to validate the effect of the therapy.